Yummy New Cookie Is Worth The Weight

January 27, 2000|By Mike Thomas Sentinel Columnist

Just when you thought the saturated-fat onslaught of the holiday season was over, just when you got back to your carrot sticks and skinless chicken breasts, a smiling co-worker comes up to you with the dreaded form:

Hi, want to put in your order for Girl Scout cookies?

They are proselytizers peddling nutritional damnation.

Still, we are talking about Thin Mints. So you order 15 boxes because it's for the children.

As you read this, 18-wheel tractor-trailers are driving down L.B. McLeod Road, headed toward the Girl Scouts warehouse. It will take 38 of them to haul all the cookies Central Florida will consume in February and March.

Last year, we ate a record 1,284,000 boxes of cookies. If you ate that many by yourself, you'd gain 444,444 pounds. It would be well worth it.

This year we will eat more. If you have ordered cookies, they will be delivered to you starting Feb. 7.

My cookies, on the other hand, are sitting on Barbara King's desk. She runs the cookie operation for the Central Florida Girl Scouts. She is a powerful woman. She can cut off your cookies with a phone call.

Barbara sneaks me a box early in exchange for positive publicity. This is legal under the Sentinel ethics policy because a box has a retail value of less than $5.

This year Barbara has something different on her desk. I don't recognize the packaging.

I take the payoff, stick it in a plain brown bag and leave, hiding my face like a state legislator leaving a Tallahassee bar late at night with his Manila envelope.

My first Animal Treasure cookie has a bear on it.

Hi, Mr. Bear!

I bite off his head. Yummy.

These are not typical shortbreads. They are thinner and much crispier.

This excellent texture separates them from the more crumbly, chocolate-dipped shortbread cookies on the supermarket shelf.

I could eat approximately one box in a sitting and gain approximately a half-pound. I rate them a tad below the peanut butter sandwich cookies.

The gold standard of the Girl Scout cookie remains the Thin Mint.

It would take 41/2 Thin Mints to equal the 180 calories found in one Krispy Kreme doughnut. Both get half their calories from fat. Thin Mints, however, contain a lot more saturated fat. So you'll want to make sure to eat some broccoli afterward.

True connoisseurs will want to check out Good Eating on Feb. 17, when much of the section will be devoted to Girl Scout cookies.

This tidbit just in from an internal Disney document: ``Fire Mountain. Name of thrill attraction opening in 2002 based upon upcoming Disney animation film Atlantis and will provide a high-speed experience into volcanic environments similar to those in the movie.''

A high-speed coaster has long been rumored at the Magic Kingdom.

According to those rumors, the Fire Mountain coaster carts would start off slow as riders are introduced to the theme. And then, suddenly, the bottom would fall out from under them and they would plunge, twisting and twirling, into an fiery abyss.

This ride would be the star attraction of the Magic Kingdom's 30th anniversary celebration.

It sounds great to me. And I know those Disney Imagineers must be eager to outdo Universal's Incredible Hulk Coaster. At some point, Disney is going to have to spread the thrills beyond Disney-MGM Studios, which has Tower of Terror and Rock 'n Roller Coaster.